Sudden Light by J.A. Greenleaf Donegal's Novel

The English army attacks Donegal Castle in Ireland in 1589. The few defenders fight vaingloriously but they are overwhelmed by the English in numbers, weaponry and surprise. Maire and Uilliam are a young, married couple who try to fight off the invaders but are lost when the castle burns. In 1666, Mary Goode is a young girl indentured to the King's Baker. Smelling fire late one night, she sounds the alarm. It is the start of the Great Fire of London. Maire is reincarnated as Mary, but remembers nothing of her past life in Ireland--that is until she meets--and touches--an English gentleman, realizing this overweight, aged, aristocrat is the embodiment of her Uilliam! Uilliam, however, remembers nothing, with tragic consequences. Throughout the next four hundred years, Uilliam and Maire live many other lives, sometimes near in age, sometimes not, and sometimes of other races. If they meet--and touch--Maire remembers all past lives, and, to her chagrin and great sadness, Uilliam has no recollection of Maire or their lives intertwining over the centuries. Borneo, the French Revolution, a clipper ship around the Horn, the American West, the trenches of World War One, the days before Pearl Harbor, crashing across the ages to the present. Maire, now Marisa, is a high-powered American lawyer and Uilliam--Bill--is an ex-convict, now charged with murder. Can she save him? Will she risk her fortune and her very life to rescue him and spirit him away? Will history repeat itself once again for these star-crossed lovers? Will Uilliam ever recognize Maire? Will they ever find one another—and happiness?

John Quigley is the President's Club Professor in Law at the Moritz College of Law at the Ohio State University. After earning his A.B., LL.B. and M.A. at Harvard University, he was an instructor in Russian at MIT, a Research Fellow and faculty of law member at Moscow State University, a research associate at Harvard Law School, and has written three books in Russian Law. He has served as the editor of the Bulletin on Current Research in Soviet and East European Law, and has published numerous articles on Soviet law.